Patrick had excused himself to another room, yellow eyes wide as he muttered to himself. Though he usually tried to stay grounded in the present moment, the unfocused look in his eye made it seem he was jumping between different points in time.

Pete had tried to follow, but he was shooed away to the main entrance room.

Gerard sat on the edge of the moss bed beside where Frank rested. The words Patrick had said kept replaying in his head. I've never seen someone burn as bright. It didn't make sense. Patrick had some of the strongest magic to currently exist. Was it betraying him somehow?

He turned to Frank, who still hadn't moved. Was he hiding something? As nervous as he was, he didn't seem the type to be good at hiding things. However, he was a Force soldier. There was no telling what he could be capable of.

"What did I do?" Gerard brought his hand through is hair before gripping some of the strands. Why hadn't he ditched the soldier when he had the chance? He could have been back home free without him. Instead he was underground, having potentially helped to damage the seer. Did the Force even know about the seer?

A gasp pulled him from his thoughts. When he looked to the moss bed, Frank was looking back at him. The soldier shot upright, immediately scooting back against the wall. He looked at Gerard with wide eyes, chest rising and falling quickly.

"Frank?" Gerard dropped his hand as he looked at the soldier pressed against the wall.

"Who are you?" Frank demanded, "How do you know my name?"

Gerard tilted his head, brow furrowing with worry. "Frank? Are you okay?"

FRANK

Frank felt his chest tighten as he stared at the red head in front of him. He didn't recognize where he was. Whatever he was sat on was too soft. The walls were too dark. The lights didn't buzz... They weren't even lights.

"Where am I?" He pulled one of his hands to his side, but there was nothing in his pocket.

The red head held up his hands. "Frank, I need you to calm down." He spoke slowly as a pink mist flared from his fingertips.

Frank's eyes widened. "No!" He brought both his hands up to cover his face as a squeezing sensation seemed to consume him.

"No what?"

It was a different voice. A familiar voice. Slowly, Frank lowered his hands.

His friend, Ray, looked at him with confusion. "We didn't even get to the scary part yet, you baby."

Frank just stared at his friend. It was Ray in front of him, but he was a child. Ray frowned as he continued to stare. "Snap out of it." He brought his hands in front of Frank's face and clapped loudly, sending a ringing echo in his ears.

Frank cried out, shutting his eyes tightly and covering his ears. He could hear other voices, but their words didn't make sense.

"Frank, hey." Ray's voice was softer now.

Frank could feel hands lightly grip his wrists. They pulled his hands away from his ears as a sense of ease washed over him. When he opened his eyes, Ray was there. His yellow eyes looked over Frank with worry. "Where did you go?" Ray asked.

"Go?" Frank repeated. His voice felt different...

Ray frowned. He rose to his feet and extended his hands to Frank. Frank reached up and took them, standing eye to eye with his friend. They didn't seem that much taller than when they had been sitting. Ray kept hold of his hands. "Where are we now?" He asked.

Frank looked around. "The Force base." He replied, recognizing the dull common room assigned to the younger, future soldiers. "I thought..." He looked back to Ray, trying to think of how they got here. He could have sworn he was just somewhere else...

"Why are we here?" Ray asked, the yellow in his eyes was dulling, "Is it important?"

"Important..." Frank shook his head, "I saw magic..."

"Where, soldier?" Ray was in his face with an eager expression. His eyes had no trace of yellow left in their dark iris. "We have to capture it!"

A sense of familiarity made Frank grin widely. "This way, soldier!" He waved his arm and began to sprint around the room. Ray laughed following after him. They weaved around chairs and cushions laughing as they trailed around the room. "There!" Frank pointed to a bench seat that sat connected to a wall, just underneath a window. The boys scrambled to be the first to climb on the seat and peek out of the window.

An orange desert landscape looked back at them.

"What do you think it's like out there?" Ray asked from beside Frank. Both boys were squished together due to the small size of the window.

Frank was barely able to wiggle his fingers close to the glass. He could almost touch it. "I don't know..." He wiggled his fingers a bit more, allowing his middle finger to just barely graze the glass.

He gasped as a green atmosphere flashed across his vision. Leaves of bright colors and fruits he could never hope to see within the Force base's walls. He stepped back, but his foot slipped off of the edge of the seat the stood on. He cried out as he began to fall, but a pair of arms scooped him from the air.

"Woah! Now, boys, what have we said about crowding the window?"

Frank looked up, seeing a woman's face. She smiled down at him as she carefully lowered him to the ground.

"To not to because it's dangerous." Ray sighed, letting himself plop down onto the seat they had been standing on. "But mom, it's so cool out there. Is all of it orange? When can Frank and I go outside?"

"Enough of that, dear, it's dinner time." The woman instructed him. She stepped around Frank and picked Ray up. Ray pouted, but didn't continue his questioning. As his mother stepped around Frank again, he gave a small wave.

Frank waved back, watching the two of them leave. It didn't seem dark outside. How was it already dinner time? Frank rose to his feet and looked around the room. The furniture seemed... different. It wasn't as clear, as if it was fading. He reached out to a seat within his reach, but quickly retracted his hand as the lights in the room went out. He squealed and bolted for the exit.

His chest rose and fell quickly as the automatic door slid shut behind him. He was in a gray hallway now. More mothers carrying children moved up and down the hall, not paying Frank any attention. They all seemed to tower over him as he pressed himself against the cool cement that surrounded them. He watched them pass, feeling a tightness in his chest. Why was he here? Ray's question echoed in his head, but trying to put more thought to it just made the edges of his vision darken and his head to hurt.

"I gotta find dad." He decided, trying to shake away the pain in his head. "If it's dinner time..." he frowned, feeling his nose scrunch. "But... but it's not." His vision blurred for a moment, causing him to bring his hands up to cover them. He groaned as a wave of nausea rushed over him. What was happening? He wasn't even sure he was at the Force base. But if he wasn't, then where was he?

"Frank!"

A sharp gasp escaped him as his arms automatically came down and his left arm positioned itself over his chest. "Force Captain!" His voice squeaked. As he looked forward in his trained pose, he found himself staring at his reflection.

He was a child. A child standing in pure darkness.

The longer he stared, the more details of a room seemed to emerge in the reflection. A bed. Some cabinet storage. A table and counter top. Soon, he saw himself standing in a fully furnished Force apartment. He hadn't moved his posture the entire time, only letting his eyes trail over the emerging landscape. He could feel his left arm beginning to drop from its position when a set of footsteps began to boom around him. His hand tightened into a fist, shaking where it rested against his chest as a familiar feeling overcame him. He knew this place.

"What have I told you about responding, Force Soldier?"

"I shouldn't have to wait for my name to be called." Frank responded promptly as the footsteps got louder.

A tisk sound fell into sync with the footsteps. "And yet, Force Soldier, what did I just do?"

Frank gulped. "Called my name." He could not see anyone else in the room reflection, but he knew the man speaking to him was there.

"Not only that, but I hear talk you've been speaking of her."

Though the words came out flat, Frank flinched. He could remember those words. He could remember something happened following those words. "I'm sorry, Force Captain." His voice shook. The familiarity of the scene unfolding in the reflection ahead of him seemed to wash over him like a rush of water.

"Sorry?" A white mist began to enter the reflection. It started slow, but quickly began to build up into an imposing figure that looked over Frank. "Sorry. Means. Nothing."

Frank dropped his arm and spun around, eyes wide as he stared into the cloud of white mist that stood behind him. "It does mean something!" Panic filled him as the mist began to tighten, making a more solid form. "I didn't mean to! I know I shouldn't talk about mom!"

The mist froze for a moment on his last word. The air itself seemed to freeze before shooting towards Frank. He cried out, bringing his arms up to cover his face. He was stopped, however by strong hands gripping his forearms. He cried out as the hands squeezed and forced his hands down. "Stop!" He tried to pull away, but he wasn't strong enough. "You're hurting me!"

He looked up into the face of the owner of the hands, but he was met by the mist. "You need to learn a lesson for misbehaving and talking back!" The man's voice screamed as white lines began to spread down Frank's skin where the hands gripped him. "Maybe this time, you'll actually learn."

Frank screamed, feeling a burning sensation follow the white lines up his arms and up his neck. He didn't feel in control of his body. His head jerked to the side, giving him a view of himself in the mirror. The white lines were covering him wherever his exposed skin showed. His eyes were wide as he looked towards the mist, which had formed into a familiar shape just out of Frank's mental reach. He looked back to himself, meeting his own eyes. His pupil seemed to grow and shrink, almost filling his eye completely with black before the white cracks broke in there too.

He couldn't bear to see anymore. He screamed again, snapping his eyes shut as the pain made everything white.

"Frank!"

Frank's eyes snapped open. There was a face in front of him, cloaked by long red hair. A solid face that looked familiar. They held his wrist, looking at him with wide eyes. They looked so familiar...

"He's back." A different voice made Frank shift his gaze just slightly. Someone else held his other wrist. He didn't look familiar, but his voice brought a faint feeling of a memory. He had bags under his greenish, blue eyes, looking almost ready to pass out. He looked at Frank and gave his wrist a small squeeze. "That's where you went."

"Your voice." Frank's head tilted just slightly, "I heard your voice."

"I had to find you." He released Frank's wrist and dropped his head. "We found you..."

"Frank, are you okay?" The one directly in front of him, the red head was speaking now. Frank squinted at him. He knew him.

Frank took his free hand and placed it on top of the red head's, where he still held onto Frank's wrist. "Gerard." His name came in an instant. He dropped his head, feeling a stabbing pain in his chest. "It hurts." He leaned forward, taking his hand away from Gerard's to instead hold his chest.

"It's okay!" Gerard assured him, "We're somewhere safe! You're safe."

"Safe?" He lifted his head to look at Gerard. "Why wouldn't I-" A flash of memory flashed over his vision, making him gasp and pull back from Gerard.

Gerard started to reach back out to Frank, but stopped himself. "He can't hurt you here." Gerard assured as Frank looked down at his shaking hands. "That was just the past, it can't hurt you now."

"Past?" Frank shook his head. "No, no, no... it was happening all over again."

"Frank, it wasn't." Gerard moved to sit next to him. "I promise. You went into a past memory, and Patrick connected us to try and pull you back. You wouldn't come back, though." He shook his head, "Not until the mist."

"It wasn't mist." Frank whispered, "It was never mist."

They sat quietly. There was other movement in the room, but Frank couldn't bring himself to look towards it. He kept replaying the memory in his head. He hadn't relived it until this moment. He wasn't even sure if he even remembered it before this moment. He never thought he talked about his mom at all, but now it felt like he had been forced not to? There was still so much that felt dark when he tried to look back on it.

After some time had passed, footsteps came into the room and someone sat down in front of Frank.

"I got lost myself for a moment, but I'm back to properly introduce myself."

Frank looked up. The man with the familiar voice, who's eyes were now a bright yellow, sat in front of him. There were still deep bags under his eyes, but he somehow seemed less tired. "I'm Patrick. You heard me in your head?"

"My friend had your eyes." Frank said, looking Patrick over. "I think he had your voice for a minute."

Patrick nodded. "You were lost in a past memory. It's something I have some experience in, so I tried to find you and find out where you went and why."

"If it was important." Frank nodded, "I remember."

"Do you know why you went there specifically?" Patrick asked.

Frank looked down, unsure how to answer. He was back to a time when he was a kid. When he and Ray dreamed of the outside. When everyone was cared for by a mother, except for Frank, which lead to...

"Frank," Gerard spoke up beside him, "do you remember what happened before you... before you kind of zoned out?"

"Zoned out?" Frank turned to him.

Gerard was frowning. He rubbed his hands together and avoided Frank's gaze. "We were arguing. You said something about your mom before going quiet and not really responding."

Frank blinked at Gerard. He didn't remember that. He wasn't sure what the last thing he remembered was. He knew he had left the Force base with Gerard. He knew they had been wandering the forests of the planet.

"That may have been a trigger." Patrick turned to his side, tilting his head. "A trigger to locked memories..."

"I'm sorry, Frank." Gerard rested his hand on one of Frank's, "I overstepped and messed up. I messed you up."

Frank looked down at their hands. There was a strange sensation under his own skin where Gerard's hand rested.

"Frank, what do you feel when you try to remember the zoned out time period?" Patrick asked.

"It's... dark." Frank shrugged, "I just don't remember."

Patrick nodded. "In your relived memory, did it ever feel similar?"

"Yea." Frank rubbed his eye. "Kind of. Things got blurry and some things were consumed by darkness... then by a brightness..."

"We saw." Gerard swept his thumb over Frank's hand. "We tried to ground you, but you wouldn't come back."

"It's something that I haven't experienced often." Patrick brought his hands together. He interlocked his fingers and let out a soft breath. "Sometimes, those more inexperienced to their magic have a hard time being grounded..."

Frank blinked, taking in what Patrick said. "Are you new to magic?"

Patrick let out a soft laugh. "No, Frank, I think you are."

"What?" Both Frank and Gerard questioned, sitting upright at Patrick's words.

Gerard shook his head. "Patrick, he's a Force soldier." He pulled his hand away from Frank's to prop himself up as he leaned toward Patrick. "They don't get magic."

Frank pulled his hand into his lap. "I'm not magic." He spoke quietly as he looked at Patrick. "I hurt magic."

Patrick shook his head. He whispered something that Frank couldn't hear before looking him in the eye to address him. "Frank, I'm a seer. My sight reaches across different pasts, presents, and futures. I don't know much of your presence within my sight, but your magic, the one I felt as I reached out to you, is one I've felt before."